Hi, I’m new to the forum just found the website a few months ago. I have always been a knife guy and dabbled in knives since my early 20’s but have started seriously collecting this year. I’ve always loved trappers and have carried one as an EDC since I was a teenager. My question is how do you tell a case xx 1st model trapper from a regular trapper or a tested frame trapper from a regular XX frame trapper? Thanks in advance for any answers

The differences are subtle but obvious once understood. Difficult to explain but in essence the bolsters on the oldest are shorter (therefore the handle cover slabs are longer). The second model has longer bolsters (and shorter handle covers) than the first, and the third has the longest bolsters and shortest handle covers. The easiest way to tell, for me at least, is by looking at the cap bolsters.

I don't have the first (oldest) version or I'd take a side-by-side picture of them for you to compare. Thats the best way to see the difference unless you can view and handle them in person. Maybe someone here that has all three will post a side-by-side picture of all three. There's probably a picture already here on AAPK somewhere!

Welcome to AAPK!

Ken

Member AKTI, TSRA, NRA.

"There was a time when young people revered their elders. No one knows when this was." - Bill Heaveyhttps://www.akti.org/

What fishnbum refers to are the three variations of 54 pattern trapper frames that can be found on CASE XX (1940-64) stamped trappers.

For many of their pocket knife patterns, Case changed the tooling from time to time, resulting in variations that can be observed by collectors. The trapper is such a highly collected pattern that collectors have identified several major manufacturing changes/variations from the XX era.

The earliest variation is referred to as the "Tested" frame by collectors since it matches the tooling of the Tested era (pre-XX). These have the narrowest lower bolster.

The next variation is referred to as the "first model" and it has a slightly wider lower bolster.

The last variation, called the "last model" was the most widely produced of the three during the XX era. The last model has the widest lower bolster of the three. This design was carried through to the later 54 patterns, USA to 70's stamps.

In each of the above, there were also changes to the blade tooling, but the bolster change is the easiest to spot.

I do not have a photo of the variation in bolster size to post, but there is a good photo of it in my book.